I’d like to start this post with a confession: I’m not a big
fan of chicken, maybe it’s because I get to eat it pretty often and it’s mostly
fried. But this time, I actually was excited about cooking it, and for 2
reasons. First, because I got my hands on this beautiful organic, yellow, plump
chicken at around 2,5 kilos. I don’t say
this easily, but this meat was just both gorgeous and delicious.
The second reason to be excited was the fact that I wanted to cook the chicken on salt, a first in the YOUVEGOTMEAL kitchen. The cooking was a 2 step process, first marinating the meat and the roasting it on salt, on low heat in the oven.
Now, I decided to cut the chicken into pieces, but you can choose to cook it whole, that gives it a more grandiose look (in my case, our tiny oven couldn’t handle a whole chicken). I cut the meat into 5 pieces: 2 whole legs, 2 pieces of breast, each with its own wing attached, and the back of the chicken, that I used to make some stock for later use in the kitchen. For the marinate, use some olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, thyme, basil, garlic and pepper. Mix everything together and massage it into the meat, then leave the chicken to rest for 1 hour in the flavored juices. The cooking process is a piece of cake (or salt, if you prefer, that actually sounds easier than making cake). Prepare the baking tray by cutting a big enough piece of baking paper, pop it under some tap water, the just crumble it into your hands then return it to its original shape. This will help you handle it easier when you place it in the tray and it will protect it better from the heat (it will make cleaning the tray a piece of salt- see what I did there?). Next, take 1 kilo of salt and place it in an even layer in the tray and place the pieces of chicken on top, skin side up, and pour the remaining juices on the meat.
Put the tray in a preheated oven, on medium-low heat and cook the chicken for about 80 minutes. You can check if it’s done by running a knife through the breast, if it goes in easily, remove it from the oven. Leave the meat to rest for 10 minutes before cutting it. I have no idea how the salt work, but the meat was tender, fresh and had a nice crisp on the outside and it didn’t taste like, well, salt. Definitely worth making. As a salad that suited the meat, we just mixed some lettuce leaves (something called latuga bowl), chopped endives leaves, pomegranate seeds with a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and honey – tangy, crunchy, sweet, perfect.
The second reason to be excited was the fact that I wanted to cook the chicken on salt, a first in the YOUVEGOTMEAL kitchen. The cooking was a 2 step process, first marinating the meat and the roasting it on salt, on low heat in the oven.
Now, I decided to cut the chicken into pieces, but you can choose to cook it whole, that gives it a more grandiose look (in my case, our tiny oven couldn’t handle a whole chicken). I cut the meat into 5 pieces: 2 whole legs, 2 pieces of breast, each with its own wing attached, and the back of the chicken, that I used to make some stock for later use in the kitchen. For the marinate, use some olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, thyme, basil, garlic and pepper. Mix everything together and massage it into the meat, then leave the chicken to rest for 1 hour in the flavored juices. The cooking process is a piece of cake (or salt, if you prefer, that actually sounds easier than making cake). Prepare the baking tray by cutting a big enough piece of baking paper, pop it under some tap water, the just crumble it into your hands then return it to its original shape. This will help you handle it easier when you place it in the tray and it will protect it better from the heat (it will make cleaning the tray a piece of salt- see what I did there?). Next, take 1 kilo of salt and place it in an even layer in the tray and place the pieces of chicken on top, skin side up, and pour the remaining juices on the meat.
Put the tray in a preheated oven, on medium-low heat and cook the chicken for about 80 minutes. You can check if it’s done by running a knife through the breast, if it goes in easily, remove it from the oven. Leave the meat to rest for 10 minutes before cutting it. I have no idea how the salt work, but the meat was tender, fresh and had a nice crisp on the outside and it didn’t taste like, well, salt. Definitely worth making. As a salad that suited the meat, we just mixed some lettuce leaves (something called latuga bowl), chopped endives leaves, pomegranate seeds with a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and honey – tangy, crunchy, sweet, perfect.
Enjoy,
What to do with leftover salt? Seems wasteful.
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